Magic University Book One: The Siren and the Sword (6 page)

Marigold shook her head. “Anyway, the Avestan Prophecies, the first cycle in it is one of the oldest and most famous, so no wonder Kate was all over it. But it’s also one of the least understood, worst translated, all that. Master Lester is one of the world authorities on it, though. They say he can recite the entire thing in like five languages.”

Alex yawned. “Yeah, cool. Anyway, gotta go.” He stood and Kyle followed. “See you all later.”

They made their way back out into the sunshine of a perfect late September afternoon. “All right, let’s see what else I can show you before you have to go to Finch’s office.”

Alex showed Kyle many interesting things that afternoon, but the memory that stayed with Kyle was of the stalks of timothy turning icy in his hand.

When we came home across the hill

No leaves were fallen from the trees;

The gentle fingers of the breeze

Had torn no quivering cobweb down.

The hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,

No withered petals lay beneath;

But the wild roses in your wreath

Were faded, and the leaves were brown.

T. S. Eliot, published in
The Harvard Advocate
when he was a student, around 1907

Kyle sat on the high stone bench outside Robinson Hall looking at the poem in his lap. Each time he read it, his mind seemed to go blank at the end. What was he supposed to say about this poem?
It’s sad. Resigned. There’s an inevitability about it.
That was about all he had come up with, and any half-wit could say those things.

There were probably all sorts of magical metaphors and meanings lurking within, of course, but he didn’t know what they were. Was the wreath special in some way? Was that a reference to a pagan ritual, maybe? Or was it the sort of wreath put on a door rather than worn on the head? Well, no, “your” wreath...it definitely had to be the kind that was worn on the head.

Class was due to start in twenty minutes and he still didn’t have anything prepared.

It didn’t help that Frost was in this class, too. Frost seemed to know everything there was to know about poets and poetry. At least this one was a magical class. Kyle’s other literature class, the one on actually writing poetry, was all mundane students, most of whom wrote truly awful poetry, too. At least in that class, he seemed to be doing well.

His other two classes were both magical: Introduction to Alchemy, and Soothsaying Practices in the English-Speaking World. He was barely keeping his head above water in them, but at least he had plenty of help. Jeanie Kwan was in the Soothsaying class and was happy to help him with it. She seemed to think the course was a gut, an easy A, and Kyle remembered how confident she had been that first night when Alex had done the Tarot reading for him. And Randall always
had advice on Alchemy, as did just about everyone.

Life would have been easier, of course, if he’d just stayed at Camella House, where all his friends were. But fate hadn’t dealt him that card.

It had dealt him the Ace of Swords.

He had gone to Madeleine Finch’s office that Saturday as he’d been instructed. Her office had a much taller ceiling than he’d expected, and the windows were all set high near the ceiling, perhaps creating an optical illusion that the ceiling was higher than it actually was? She had set him without preamble into the green leather chair in front of her desk and handed him a pack of cards. “Best get this part over with,” she said, as if she didn’t have much enthusiasm for the process.

The backs of her cards had intricate designs and they were larger than regular playing cards. He shuffled them clumsily in his hands, then decided he’d best not go on with that too long or he might drop them all over the floor. He neatened the stack and turned up the top card.

A figure was painted there, white skin glowing as if in moonlight and black hair a bit wild, as if blown by the wind off the moor. Blue eyes stared past the sword he had upraised, directly at Kyle. “That looks a lot like Timothy Frost,” he said.

Ms. Finch let out a huff of breath. “Indeed. And there’s no question, the Ace of Swords means Gladius House for you. I’ll let Dean Bell and Master Brandish know.” She took a seat behind her desk and brought a computer screen to life. Its glow gave her glasses a bluish cast. Kyle blinked. He hadn’t even noticed the computer before and it looked out of place now that he had. She tapped on the keys, then looked up at him. “You seem surprised to see we use e-mail.”

“Oh, um, I guess so.”

“Where we can, we’ve adopted the best system we can either for purposes of camouflage, or efficiency. We had magical means of instant communication long before the non-magical population did. But magic of any kind requires energy...well, so does e-mail, but it comes out of the plug on the wall and the university pays the bill. Trust me, e-mail is better than a magic mirror.” She tapped on a few more keys and examined the screen.

“Now, I’ve spoken to a few people about fitting you into their classes, and honestly your choices may be a bit limited, both by your lack of prior knowledge and the fact that the semester is already three weeks old. I’ve also spoken to Admissions and it would appear you will be required to finish a year of English in order to receive your high school diploma, which they will require.”

Kyle tried not to fidget as she looked at him. “Um, the others were saying it might be helpful if I told you what my aptitudes are.”

“Indeed,” she said. “And what are they?”

“Well, that’s the problem. I seem to be a late bloomer.”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose it would be too easy if you just waltzed in already an accomplished Seer or obvious prodigy in Enchantment.” She tapped a few more keys and the sound of a printer coming to life whined in his ears. She stood and turned to get a page coming out of the printer behind her. “Here, have a look at this list. The simplest form of Soothsaying for us here is probably for you to pick out what looks most interesting for you, and let’s hope you don’t pick too many things that meet at the same time.”

Thus he’d chosen his three magical classes, including Poetry: Analysis and Interpretation Through the Ages, and one regular English, in poetry writing. Ms. Finch thought maybe that was too much poetry, but it worked in the schedule and made Admissions happy, so she approved his schedule.

Kyle sighed and lay back on the bench in the shade of the building. It wasn’t even properly a bench—it was more like the plinth of some long, low statue that had gotten up and walked away, and was high enough that he had to hoist himself up onto it. The doorway of the building was guarded by friezes of gryphons on either side, set into the walls.
Maybe there used to be a big one here,
Kyle thought.
Until it flew away.

“Daydreaming again, Wadsworth?”

He closed his eyes with a sigh of resigned recognition, then dragged himself upright. “Hello, Frost.” The figure approaching looked as pale as ever.
He’s not a vampire. I’ve seen him in the sun
, Kyle thought, then made a mental note to ask someone whether vampires were real or not.

“I don’t know what your layabout friend has told you, but it really won’t do to wait until fifteen minutes before class to do your homework.” Frost came to a stop a few feet away, his backpack held in one hand by a strap instead of slung over his shoulder. “Master Brandish really won’t stand for slacking in Gladius House.”

Kyle ran his hand through his hair, ignoring the dig at Alex. “I’m not slacking. I’ve been staring at this poem for...for days. But I just don’t know what to say.”

A tiny smile curled Frost’s lip. “But I thought that was your knack, isn’t it? For saying the right thing? Always knowing what to say?”

Kyle stared at him in shock. “Oh God, you’re right. That’s...that’s usually true...”

Frost shook his head very slowly, as if saddened by this revelation and expressing deep sympathy and regret, except for the smirk. “Not much of an aptitude, if you ask me.” He took two steps closer, coming almost all the way up to the plinth so he could lower his voice to say what came next. “Are you sure you’re magical? What if you’re one of those mundanes who just happens to be Sighted?”

“There are Sighted mundanes?” Kyle felt a cold trickle spiral down his spine.

“Of course. Most of them are harmless, or easily misdirected. But, hmm. You’ve seen an awful lot. Not sure you’d be allowed to keep your memories...”

“No!” Kyle jumped down, fists clenched. The book of poems fell with a thud. He could live without being magical, but he couldn’t live without Jess. And he’d forget her if they put him under the Geas.

Frost waved a hand. “Don’t be so dramatic. Pull your grades up and no one will even blink if you don’t demonstrate an aptitude until you absolutely have to declare a major. You can buy yourself two years that way, you know. Now come on, it’s nearly time for class.”

Kyle stood there a moment longer as Frost drifted into the building. He shook himself and picked up the book. One minute he got the feeling Frost hated him and couldn’t wait to see him given the boot; the next like it was just part of some game Frost played.

Just add Frost to the list of baffling things I don’t understand in the magical world.

He went into the classroom. It was a small room with a large wooden table, and blue plastic chairs around it.

Professor Bengle was already there, writing some words on the board. Frost took the seat next to the head of the table, while Kyle took the one closest to the door, the furthest he could get from him. The others filed in as he opened the book to the poem and then his notebook, the page in front of him conspicuously blank. The professor turned to the group and took his seat. He had a graying mane of hair, which really did not fit the clothes he wore, Kyle thought. Today he was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans that looked like they belonged on someone in his twenties, not his...fifties? Kyle could only guess.

A few more students came in and took their seats. Kyle’s stomach roiled. Each one of them had been given a different poem to interpret and present to the class last Thursday. He breathed a small sigh of relief as the professor did as predicted and started the presentations with Frost, then things would just go around the table. Each one them would give their interpretation and then the group would discuss the interpretation, picking it apart, some for, some against. That gave Kyle the space of five people’s presentations to come up with something. He wasn’t out of this game yet, wasn’t on the path to expulsion and the Geas yet.

He stared at the words in front of him and they seemed to almost swim and hover above the page after a while. He wasn’t listening to or absorbing any of the words being spoken at all. It was like being in a trance.

Quite suddenly, the student next to him, an Irish girl named Ciara, poked him in the ribs. “Your turn.”

“Oh.” Kyle looked up. Professor Bengle was smiling at him down the table with a benign and expectant look.

“Well,” Kyle began. “This poem was written by Eliot while he was a student at Veritas, and it was never printed in his other books or anything, even his supposedly ‘complete’ poems. It was published in the literary magazine for Harvard,
and he was an editor there, too.” All of this, the other students in the class could have found in the notes in the back of the book, but a few of them were giving him, “oh, how interesting” looks, so he soldiered on.

He looked back at the poem. “Let me recite it.” He cleared his throat and recited the lines, then found himself savoring the moments of silence at the end while the words sank into everyone’s brains. His eyes locked with Frost’s for a moment.

“This poem is about someone who is losing her magic,” Kyle said suddenly.

Surprised looks around the table, and a bushy gray eyebrow raised in interest on Professor Bengle’s face.

“We are constantly using the metaphor of the flower to represent magical power,” Kyle went on. “Like with expressions like ‘late bloomer.’ The almost unspeakable sadness imbued in this poem is entwined with the helplessness of the poet or narrator. There’s nothing he can do. It’s only the very beginning of the waning, but he already foresees the disaster coming. I believe there’s more to this poem, and that only the first two stanzas were put into the mundane magazine, but that probably somewhere in his papers, or maybe only in his head, there was more to this. Perhaps he only printed the first two stanzas because they easily lend themselves to mundane interpretation, and the following stanzas would have been too revealing. Or perhaps he excised them later, as this poignant moment of realization is the best expression of all that is to come.”

The table burst into argument. “You can’t mean that Eliot was referencing the Avestan Prophecy?”

“That’s not the only prophecy that has that kind of thing in it, you know...”

“Magic loss is a common anxiety age after age, and surely Eliot could have drawn on this...”

And on and on. Kyle found he didn’t have to say or defend anything. His eyes met Professor Bengle’s down the table and he was gratified to see an approving nod before the professor argued a point with another student.